It's Not the Size of the Rock That Counts
by AnihyrMoonstar
Summary: Various males from the Danny Phantom series pop the big question. Four "Will you marry me?" one-shots, vaguely related, starring: Danny/Sam, Dash/Paulina, Tucker/Valerie, and Kwan/Star, though not necessarily in that order.
1. Baby Came Back

**A/N:** I've told you the pairings; your challenge is to guess who's featured in each shot before their names are mentioned. Good luck. :)

* * *

**One| **_Baby Came Back_

The door clicks, creaks, and slams. There's the sound of bags hitting the floor and a huff, followed immediately by more shuffling.

He doesn't look up from the TV when he says, "You're back," working hard to make it sound as disinterested as possible, but he smiles when he says it.

At the door, another – this time slightly more pronounced – huff is his only answer before her footsteps fade back out, heels clicking all the way. When she comes back the second time – with more bags, again, he can tell – he changes the channel, but it's not as if he's paying attention anymore.

"I knew you would, you know," he says instead, increasingly aware of the real effort it's taking to keep his eyes on the screen, and the clicking of her heels slows, but doesn't stop. "You always come back, eventually…" Here, he finally allows himself to look up and finds her eyes on him – narrowed, assessing. She's as beautiful as she's always been. "You need me."

Her fists clench. "You…_bastard_," she hisses, but doesn't move, seemingly frozen in place as he rises, slowly, from the couch and starts to approach her. "You always think…_everything_ is about you, don't you? You…you…_ughhh_…" And the last part is a screech of frustration as much as anything else. "You're so…_stupid_, and _full of yourself_, and…I-"

"You want help with those bags?" he asks neutrally.

Another screech, and this time she moves to hit him, but he catches her fists, trapping them effortlessly to his chest; and suddenly there's barely a foot between their faces. When she shudders, he feels it, and his pulse responds in kind.

"You're such an asshole…" she whispers, not meeting his eyes.

"I missed you, too," he murmurs, and her eyelids squeeze shut, her anger melting back in the face of something else altogether.

"Why?" she whines at last, but at first he's not sure what she's asking. Then she takes a quivering breath and shakes her head. "_Why_, huh?" she insists. "_Why_ did you ask me? Why would you…why would you ever…why did you even-"

When he gets it, he feels the first spark of anger, and "Why do you _think?_" he snaps back. "I asked because-"

"I think you asked because you were scared!" she snarls before he can get his words in. "I think you asked because you didn't know what to do, and you were worried I would leave, and you panicked and…and you…you thought if…" As her words crumble off and her body starts to shake in earnest, his anger fades as quickly as it came, replaced by sudden, blessed understanding.

"Baby…" He lets go of her wrists with one hand and reaches to her chin, tilting it up and brushing a thumb over her cheek as she fights with tears, her eyes still avoiding his at all costs. "Babe, you know you'll screw up your make-up if you cr-"

"Oh, _fuck_ the-" she starts vehemently, but he catches her waist when she tries to draw back, sliding the other hand behind her neck and drawing her to him with both.

"Hey, hey, shhh…" he soothes, waiting until her tension starts to ease before moving the hand at her waist up and rubbing slow, calming circles over her back.

He thinks his heart might literally start performing acrobatics in his throat when she curls closer, fisting her slim fingers into his shirt and burying soft, frustrated whimpers against his chest. He shuts his eyes.

"I didn't ask for any of those reasons…" he says finally. "It wasn't a last minute thing, and it wasn't to tie you down 'cause I was scared or…well," He frowns, "just nothing like that. I asked because…"

Here he takes a deep breath, propping his chin lightly atop her head and feeling the rise and fall of her breathing, taking in the familiar scent of her perfume and relishing in how _right_ she feels, in his arms, just like this.

"I asked because I'd been thinking about it for a long time…" he admits, and the words come easier when he doesn't try to think too much about them, "…and I realized I don't want anybody but you, and I don't think I ever will…and when you're not here, I'd give anything to have you screamin' at me just to make it not so damn quiet…and even when we're both old and nasty and ugly and wrinkly…" She shifts in his grip, "…I still want it to be your voice yapping at me, and so I figured…" She's finally looking at him now, but he pushes on, "…that I can take you rearranging my furniture as much as you like, and telling me I'm color blind, and stupid, and burning my food-"

"Hey-"

"-'cause I don't _care_ about that so much as maybe I thought I did and…I'd rather eat burnt shit four meals a day and never watch anything but Lifetime and the fashion channel than not have you around, 'cause I may be _stupid_-"

"Baby-"

"-but I'm not so dumb I don't know you care about me, too, and I _love_ you, and no matter how many times you leave I still want you to be a part of my life, so-"

"_Dash!_"

Finally, Dash pauses, and he blinks down at the woman in his arms. "What?"

Paulina smiles, one of her rare, soft, true, _beautiful _smiles – the kind that reaches her eyes and goes past her make-up and lights up her face more than any blush or highlights could ever hope to. She reaches up, catching behind his neck and stringing her fingers lightly into his hair in a way that sends shivers through his veins, and "Yes," she whisperes softly, almost nervously, "yes, I will."

And there's no feeling like this in the world.

Dash swallows hard, shutting his eyes. "Really?" he murmurs, needing to hear it just once more, and her laughter ripples through her – like bells and birdsong and the crash of an ocean wave against the shore – and she nods, bringing her other hand up to join the first, her smile brilliant as starlight on snow.

"Yes, I'd love to marry you. I-"

He kisses her, and she never finishes that sentence. She doesn't have to.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm not sure what inspired this. I may well go back and decide it's crap later, but for now I'm edgy and feel like posting something. This is my first story with straight couples, oh my. *pokes the boys and girls together* How strange...

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed yourselves, even though I'm sure most of you probably just wanted to read about Sam and Danny. HAH. I'll get to them eventually. Maybe. Faster, you know, if you review. True story. ^_^ (No, really, though, I promise it will star Danny and Sam at some point; otherwise it would have been cheating to include them in the summary and/or as characters used.)

'Til next time, kiddos.


	2. Size Matters  Not?

**Two| **_Size Matters…Not?_

"…and it's so _big_, too," she insists, donning the sort of pout that he secretly thinks wars probably used to be fought over. "I mean I know his family's loaded and all, but it's _just_ a wedding ring! Did he really need to spend _so much_ on her?"

Her eyes spark passionately when she huffs this, her narrow eyebrows furrowing together cutely and lips gleaming under the moonlight, but he realizes by now that most of hers are rhetorical questions anyway and keeps companionably silent.

Sure enough, she continues brazenly, "And after all she's done to him, too! Sometimes I just don't understand how he put up with it all…the break ups and the get back togethers and…" When she shivers, he shifts his position wordlessly, absently tucking her just a little more snugly into his embrace, and she burrows back cooperatively into the movement without more than the slightest of pauses in her train of dialogue, "…I guess I just think it's silly…that she felt she had to test him so many times and run him through so many hoops…and this is since we were all in high school!"

Goosebumps add a subtle ripple of texture to her usually baby-smooth skin, and he thinks that he should have brought that second blanket after all, despite her adamant insistence that she 'could so' handle an evening picnic in mid-October without a million layers of cover, and that she '…wasn't _that_ much of a Barbie doll, thank you very much.' Next time he'll just pack one without asking.

"I just can't imagine doing that to someone I care about…can you imagine doing something like that?" she asks, and this time she tilts her head when she says it, turning against his chest and curving back to catch a glimpse of him out from under long, feathery lashes.

He shakes his head, and when she lets the pause hang long enough for him to actually fit in a reply, he leans forward, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face, and kisses her temple. "No," he says solemnly, though his smile somewhat belies the seriousness of it, "sounds awful."

"I know!" she comes back in with a vengeance, apparently oblivious to his subtle teasing – not that he minds, really. "It's _terrible_. I mean…we've been together for almost as long…_longer_, if you don't count all the time they've spent pretending they're not going to get back together…and we haven't been that silly about it even once! It's _so_ stupid. And they're so young! Well, I mean, we're _all_ so young…"

Here, her words start to slow just barely noticeably, and he makes a soft sound of agreement, moving to place a kiss just above her temple, to the side of her forehead. She shuffles her weight, curling pale, barefoot, recently-pedicured toes into the picnic blanket.

"It would…I mean it would probably be silly to get married so soon, anyway," she admits carefully. "Really, it's not like _we_ have something to prove…we wouldn't have to…you know, do something like _that_ to prove that we were committed or anything…because we know already…I mean…well, _I_ certainly don't need proof like that to know that _you_ care…"

Slowly, his hands – previously trying (valiantly, if not entirely successfully) to rub some warmth into her arms – still their efforts, and he takes his time turning so can see her and _watch_ her expression when he asks, "So you _don't_ want to get married?"

Even in the semi-dark, the instant, rapid pinking of her cheeks is obvious, and her eyes widen just as vividly, shrouded in darkness but still wildly alive as she shakes her head abruptly with great purpose. "_No_," she utters intensely, and he can't help but liken her, in this moment, to a child, caught in the act of mischief; twenty-four-years-old, and she still manages to pull off innocence like it was yesterday. "I didn't mean…well, I—that is…"

Deciding to go easy on her – and more or less incapable of doing anything but that, in any case – he smiles and dots a kiss to the corner of her lips, hushing her before he asks, "Then, _do_ you want to get married?" and her reaction this round is just as splendid.

"I…well…" Her face warms further as her words fall apart, the gentle upsweep of her cheeks coming to glow like twin nightlights, or possibly two very distantly burning stars, and suddenly she can't quite meet his eyes, her lashes painting tiny slivers of color on her cheeks, like the thin hairs of a fine paintbrush. "Yes, eventually, one day…of course, I-"

"I didn't…" Finally, it's his turn to blush. "That's not…exactly what I…meant…"

He clears his throat, and he _knew_ the nerves would hit, but he still isn't quite prepared for them to come on this immediately, and this alarmingly – and all at once. Yet, with nothing left to do now but proceed, he does just that: first gently untangling himself from around her, and then settling himself on one knee before her and taking a breath. Her eyes are fixated on him now, with rapt, rigid attention as he reaches out and carefully clasps her hand.

"Star…" He hasn't seriously worried about the size of the diamond, or the circumference of the band, or whether or not she might have had some very specific cut in mind beforehand, until this moment – absolutely and positively too late – as he draws it from his pocket, but he need not have worried, because it fits her slim, quivering finger perfectly, "…will you marry me?"

First, she stares at it, lost in a sort of awe as if her hand had suddenly declared itself the born-again Messiah, destined to lead the human race to salvation; then, she cradles it, drawing her palm to her chest and pulling her lip between her teeth as if she still can't quite _believe_ the moment is actually real; and then, she affixes him with a narrowed, suddenly suspicious glare.

"You're not asking just because _he_ did, are you?" she asks pointedly, and it throws him.

"_No_, I…" He wonders if he can get off his knee now. "I bought that six months ago…" he admits bashfully, not quite daring to move because she _technically_ hasn't answered the question yet, and maybe it would be a worthwhile venture to make sure that all females were taught at some point in their younger years that this was a very important question to answer _quickly_ – because surely there is no torture greater than waiting for the reply. "Dash actually caught me, later, with it and…well, he made fun of me at the time, but I guess he thought it was an okay idea because obviously he-"

"You've been thinking about this for six months?" Star whispers softly, with a sort of hopeful resonance, and Kwan wonders if his cheeks could possibly get any darker as he strings a hand awkwardly behind his neck.

"Actually…I've kina been thinking about this for…" And the last word is deathly quiet, "…years…" but apparently she hears it, because her eyes are huge and awestruck all over again by the time he looks back up.

"Oh, Kwan…" Her words go quiet. "You know, Paulina ran away when Dash proposed…she told me herself that day she was never going back and it was all finally over…"

Kwan shuts his eyes, swallowing. "Star…baby, please…_please _don't do that…" he says in an embarrassingly small voice. "If it's not as big as the one Paulina got or you want me to get a new one or _anything _I can always go-"

She tackles him – with impressive force for a woman who would have to jump on a scale to make the needle pass one twenty-five, his former football-player mind informs him – but his twenty-four-year-old male, recently boyfriend-turned-fiancé mind is too busy wrapping itself around the fact that he's being showered with kisses and that a single word is being directed at him, over and over. It takes him the longest time to process the sound, and longer still to translate the ecstatic, muffled and mumbled syllables into, "Yes…yes, yes, yes…"

* * *

**A/N:** Hmmm…I still think I like the first one better. I dunno. Maybe it's because I have a thing for drama and/or the passion of roller-coaster relationships. Or maybe it's because I'm so determined to be the champion of unloved pairings…or maybe both. Yeah, probably both. I guess it's like, if I can't prove to the world a little bit at a time that love is beautiful no matter who's in it or with whom their falling, then I've failed somehow (and I'll just have to try harder next time, because giving up isn't an option).

Questions, comments, criticisms, flames? …suggestions? If anyone has any ideas on how they'd like the Danny/Sam one to play out, feel free to tell me. I have some ideas, but their story isn't nearly as concrete as the other three, in my head, so it's open for inspiration/editing.


	3. Fortune Favors the Prepared, Sort Of

**Three|** _Fortune Favors the Prepared…Sort Of_

"Uughhh…_eww_…" he whines loudly, flinging a clingy blob of fresh, slimy green ectoplasm from his scuffed fingers and then groaning as he sits up, bringing his clean hand to the already budding lump on the back of his head. "Aww, man…" He winces, twisting to crack his back and stretch any number of abused muscles before forcing himself to a wobbly stand, "…guhhh…yup, _definitely_ gonna feel that one, come morning…"

Footsteps scuff up loose asphalt down the alley, coming towards him – the pounding footsteps of running feet – and he turns, squinting. Though he can't make out much feature-wise, he'd recognize that run anywhere, and his suspicions are confirmed the next second when she calls out to him.

"Oh, God…there you are…babe," Despite being fantastically fit, she's out of breath by the time she makes it to him – not that he can blame her, after _that_ fight, "are you…okay?" she pants. "One second you were…there, and then…I couldn't find you, and-"

"I'm fine," he says, suddenly smiling in spite of himself – despite the dizziness in his head and the throbbing in his leg – and he reaches out, running a slow, seeking hand over her cheek and checking by feel for any obvious signs of scrapes or bruising. "You?" he asks. "And what about the ghost? Did-"

"They got it," she assures him, her tone significantly less harried now, and she leans into his touch, then catches his fingers in her own before he can withdraw, holding them by her cheek. "We're all good, now…" she says, quieter, and her breath is a whisper of heat and moist air on his lips the moment before she kisses him – not quite chaste, but tender and enduring – and in the span of those passing seconds, he's convinced – as he has been before and will be again, he has no doubt – that she's skies above him and miles out of his league, and it's only by some ineffable miracle of fate that she's really his. "I was worried about you," she admits when she pulls back, and he does his best to shrug without wincing.

"Eh, I've had worse…"

She snorts, but there's enough lightheartedness to it that it goes by smoothly. "Yeah, uh-huh…y—what's wrong?" The question catches him off-guard.

"Huh?"

"You have that expression," she accuses, "the one where you're thinking about something and it's bugging you, but you're not sure you want to talk about it."

"Oh." He blushes, caught. "Umm…nothing important?"

He can just make out the deepening furrows of her frown. "Oh, no. You're not getting off that easy. If-"

"I was just thinking you deserve better," he blurts, because throwing his will against hers is like trying to commit an advanced text on hyper text markup language to memory – when it's written in binary code – and before she can cut in, he barrels on. "You deserve to have one night where there isn't a ghost attack or an explosion or a near-death experience…one night done _right_, where the biggest thing on your mind isn't a bunch of guns and shrapnel and ectoplasm…and I've been trying to arrange that night for _ages_ now, it feels like, and I thought I finally had it, you know? I had everything planned out – the walk and the restaurant and even the music that was playing there-"

"I wondered if you had something to do with that…"

"-and it was all _set_, and the mood was right, and no one was bugging us, and nothing was pressing for you to leave so I could finally, finally propose in _peace_, when the night was all about us and nothing else…but then _this_-"

"Wait, hold up-"

"-had to happen, and the restaurant manager's probably banned us for life for all the property damage, and-"

"Tuck-"

"-there's a hole in my only tux, and we might well get sued and-"

"_Tuck_-"

"-I didn't even get to finish my filet mignon beca-"

"TUCKER LEONARD FOLEY!"

Tucker's lips clap shut. Valerie stalks in, dropping one hand to either side of his head, caging him; he swallows. "Errr…yes, dear?" he peeps timidly.

"You wanna back that up and run it by me once more again at a _human_ pace?"

"Umm…the uh, part about my filet mignon?" he asks. "Because that really was irritat-"

"Tucker!"

He clears his throat. "Yeah?"

Her tone softens. "You were gonna propose?"

He blushes. "Ah, oh uhh…that bit…well…" His hand makes it halfway to the bridge of his nose before he remembers he _can't_ readjust his glasses to stall for time because, well, they're not there. He clears his throat, again, instead. "See, I didn't actually mean to say that out loud…to you…right now…because this is, umm…well, I mean, it's obviously messed _up_, now, and I wanted everything to be perfect when I actually did ask, so-"

"Tucker…" She holds a finger gently to his lips, hushing him, and he wishes he could better see the smile he hears in her voice, "…how about you just ask?" she suggests, taking back her hand only after she knows she has his attention, and he blinks, mildly taken aback.

"Here?" he asks, as if it's the most absurd idea ever.

"Why not?" she counters.

"_Now?_" He begs for clarification, because really..._really?_ In an _alley? _What kind of romance novels were women reading these days, anyway?

"Uhh…_yes?_" she responds, and he shakes his head.

"But…this is…this place is _dirty_," He continues to resist, "and I'm covered in _ghost-goo_, and I don't even know what _happened_ to my left shoe, and I left the ring back in the-"

"_Tucker_…" She cuts him off again, this time finally verging on impatient, "…I don't care about any of that…I'm a pretty practical girl, remember? You think I can't take a proposal with a few scrapes and bruises around the edges?"

Tucker considers this. "Well, I suppose…if you're sure…" And then, because he _has_ to ask, "…but are you _positive_ you don't want to just wait until the stocks on my newest encephalic neuro-sensory holo chip to take off and I have enough cash to fly us to Fiji and ask there—because they damn well better not have ghosts in Fiji—and make it a proper-"

"Tucker Foley," Valerie clips tersely, "if you do not ask me to marry you within the next fifteen seconds, I swear to _God_-"

"Okay! Okay, jeez, woman…cut a man some slack…" he teases, rolling his eyes, but smiling nonetheless. "I mean, if I knew you felt this way about it, I would have just asked the other day…you know, when I had you on top of the laundry machine with your legs on my-"

"_Tucker_-"

"Valerie…" Tucker starts solemnly.

She stops, and waits.

"…darling, babe, sweetheart…love of my life…most elegant angel ever to set foot on this dark, dreary earth whose very voice is music to my ears—"

She opens her mouth.

"—make me the happiest man alive and tell me you'll marry me?"

For all his complaints about the setting, the only thing that honestly bothers him is that he can't clearly see her face when he says it. It probably doesn't matter, since there's no way she's surprised by now, but it still bugs him, and it's the first time he ever seriously considers getting contacts – if only because they were probably much less likely to get lost in the middle of a ghost fight. Then they're kissing, and even that detail doesn't matter.

"Valerie?"

"About damn time you got around to asking…"

"So…is that a 'ye-"

"Yes, Tucker, of course…of course it's a yes."

"Oh, okay, good…great, 'cause, umm…you know I was getting worried there. For a second."

"Liar…"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

* * *

**A/N:** Hyper text markup language = HTML, fyi. My boyfriend thought the sentence where I used that was confusing/overly-complicated, and he's more of a computer geek than me, so I debated heavily about whether or not to change and/or nix it completely, but eventually decided against it because I'm picky and stubborn. Did it make sense in context? (You don't have to say yes, I'm just wondering.)


End file.
